


Selfish

by apollo1832



Series: Season 05 Fix-its [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: 05x03, Dialogue Heavy, Fix-It, Langst, M/M, at least i think its dialogue heavy, set during the course of episode 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-26 14:48:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13859991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apollo1832/pseuds/apollo1832
Summary: Lance is feeling some Things about the Holt Family Reunion





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The first chapter is set after Zarkon dies and the Holt Family Reunion.  
> Usual warning but everything i write is unbetaed so any and all mistakes are my own!  
> ENJOY!

After Zarkon dies and the Holts are reunited, all Lance wants to do is call Keith. They’re all back on the ship and nobody is paying attention to him, so he just, leaves. He knows he shouldn’t because they’ll probably wind up discussing important stuff soon, but. But he really just wants to hear Keith’s voice, to make sure he’s okay. To let him know that they’re all okay. It’s barely been 2 days since he first called him, but still, he misses Keith now more than ever.

He goes to a part of the Castle that he claimed as his ‘quiet’ space for when he wants to just get away from everyone. It looks like an old observatory deck that hasn’t been used even when the Castle was full of Alteans. Lance loves it. Looking out into the vastness of Space, it makes him feel. Not good or bad, just _feel_ , and that’s all you can ask when you’re fighting a ten thousand year old intergalactic war.

He drops down onto a giant comfy chair and touches the gemstone on his left hand and says, “Call.”

Again, the ring starts vibrating, but he’s prepared, so he doesn’t flail like last time.

It only rings for a tick or two before Keith’s voice softly filters through, sounding like he’s standing right in front of Lance.

“Hey Lance,”  

Lance tucks his feet under himself, getting comfortable in his chair before responding.

“Heya Keith.”

Something must be off from his tone because Keith immediately picks up on it and asks him what’s wrong.

“Nothing’s wrong man! Everything’s actually really good? For once at least. It’s actually why I called, to tell you the good news.”

“Ookay. What’s the news?”

“Weeeeellllll,” Lance said before stopping, dragging it out, waiting for Keith to get impatient.  No matter how he feels about him, needling Keith is always fun.

“Lance!”

“Alright, alright Mr. Grumpy Pants! If you _must_ know, Zarkon’s dead,” Lance said jovially.

“…..WHAT?!” Keith shouted.

Lance heard a weird crash going on in the background of Keith’s audio, followed by a soft ‘ow’. Lance just lost it at the image of Keith being so surprised that he fell out of his chair. Lance could just picture it. Keith always had a habit of leaning his chair back on its back two legs, and Hunk always told him to be careful because he could fall and hurt himself, but when that happened, Keith would just go back even further, as if to prove he couldn’t fall. At one point, Lance is pretty sure he heard Keith say ‘I can’t fall because Gravity is my bitch’ under his breath, but Lance was too far away to know for sure.

“Lance! Stop laughing!”

“You should have listened to Hunk!” Lance retorted, laughing even harder. “Ohmygod, this is the best, I wish I could have seen that.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever Lance,” Keith said before continuing hesitantly, “Were you serious? Is Zarkon actually dead?”

“Yup! He tried to pull something during the exchange, but after everything went to shit, Lotor was the one to kill him,” he said.

“Holy shit.”

“I know.”

“And you guys got Commander Holt back safe and sound right?”

“Yeah, there’s a Holt family reunion happening on the bridge right now, everyone’s excited.”

“You don’t sound excited Lance.”

Which is why Lance was currently sitting alone starring out into space. It was selfish, so goddamn selfish, but when he saw Pidge and Matt get their Dad back, it just made him his family back on Earth. Most days he tries not to think about them, and it’s easy when they’re fighting battles and saving people. But when he sees his friends reunited with their family? He can’t help but think it isn’t _fair_. He misses his brothers Marco and Luis, and his sister Veronica, and his Mom and Dad, and his Grandmother who lives with them. The last time he talked to them, Veronica had just announced she was pregnant. And it’s been over a year since then. She’s probably already had the baby, and, and-

“Lance,” Keith said, cutting through Lance’s thoughts, “You okay?”

“Sorry, it’s nothing,” Lance tried.

“When I told you to come to me if you needed to talk, I _meant_ it sharpshooter.”

Lance laughed a bit wetly at the nickname, but finally said, “It’s selfish.”

“What’s selfish?”

“I should be happy that Pidge and Matt got their Dad back, and I am, I am happy they got their Dad back, but I’m just-I don’t know,” Lance sighed, “I miss my family back on Earth. It’s been over a year-at least according to the Earth timer Hunk installed-and what if they think I’m dead and I never get to go home to let them know I’m okay? They’ll go their whole lives not knowing what happened to me and-” Lance stopped, eyes filling rapidly and trying, and failing, to stop the tears from falling.

“Lance, missing your family isn’t selfish,” Keith told him gently, once again stopping him from spiraling into his thoughts.

“But-“

“No, Lance. It’s not selfish to miss the people you love. I miss you guys all the time. Is that selfish?”

Lance sniffed, wiping his face on his jacket sleeve, and said “No, and we miss you too Keith. A lot.”

Lance heard the alarm go off in the hallway, indicating that everyone was needed on the bridge to discuss something.

Keith laughed when he heard Lance groan at the interruption and Lance felt his stomach flip at the sound. “Looks like you need to go.”

“I guess,” Lance said, wanting nothing more than to just stay curled up on the chair talking to Keith, “I’ll talk to you later?”

“Yeah, talk to you later.”

Lance knew Keith wasn’t one for real goodbyes, so he wasn’t offended in the least when Keith hung up after that. Cracking his back while stretching, Lance made his way to the Bridge.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is set during/after Lance gets his new sword, WHICH I LOVE SO MUCH YOU GUYS. This kinda got away from me, but hope you enjoy!

After getting chewed out by Shiro, Lance fled to the training deck to work off some energy. As he was blasting through the bots with his gun he kept thinking back to what Shiro said.

_I know I can be a bit of a goofball, but does Shiro really not trust me? At all? Does Shiro think I shouldn’t be a paladin?_ Lance wondered, as he thought back to Shiro telling him to stay out of what was, for all intents and purposes, paladin business. _Does he wish Keith were his right hand instead of me?_

It seemed like ever since Keith left, Shiro had been acting off. He was quick to anger, and refused to listen to anyone on the team. Whenever Lance offered up and idea, serious or otherwise, Shiro was quick to tell him off and angrily tell him to stop goofing off. At least when Keith was flying Black he _listened_ to what Lance had to say.

As the training bots kept coming closer and closer, Lance switched to his sniper rifle to take them out one by one. But it seemed like as soon as he started to think about Keith-and when wasn’t he thinking about Keith these days?-his Bayard switched to a sword. Lance just went with his instincts and pulled up what he saw Keith do in the training room with his sword time and time again, and copied that, slicing through the bots like they were nothing.  

When he was done, he put his new sword in front of him with wonder and said, “Woah.”

“I haven’t seen that for 10,000 years,” Allura said suddenly from behind Lance.

Spinning around, caught off guard Lance stammered, “A-A-Allura?”

“That’s an Altean Broadsword,” Allura explained, coming closer, “my father used one just like it.”

Still confused Lance said, “I have _no_ idea how I did this.” Yeah, he really didn’t, it was like on moment he was thinking about Keith, and worrying about Shiro not believing in him, and the next he had a sword. He had no idea how to use a sword! Guns are his things! He’s a long range fighter, meant to provide cover for his team, not be right in the thick of things with a sword!

“I think your Bayard is showing what we’ve all been noticing. You have greatness within,” Allura said.

_Ha, ‘greatness within’, right._ “I don’t think Shiro has noticed,” Lance said sadly.

To his surprise, Allura just said, “Shiro has been quite difficult lately, I’m not sure what to do, we seem to constantly be at odds.”

While Lance did agree that Shiro has been acting differently recently, he couldn’t help but try to excuse him.

“You guys are under a lot of pressure. Having Lotor around doesn’t help.”

“Sometimes it feels like it was easier to fight the Galra, rather than to try to work with them.” And yeah, Lance agreed with that, but he didn’t feel like the right thing to agree with just then.

“You both have the coalition’s best interests at heart. Don’t forget that. Shiro isn’t your enemy.” At least, Lance didn’t think Shiro was their enemy. Right?

“You’re right. I need to stay focused on the big picture. Thank you, Lance. Speaking with you has actually made me feel better.”

“What do you mean ‘actually’?” Lance said, trying to lighten the mood, knowing he succeeded when Allura laughed along.

“Oh, and, Lance,” Allura said once she caught her breath, “If you’re going to try to control a sword this powerful…you need to work on your stance,” right before she slammed him on his ass, knocking the breath out of him.

Once Lance got to his feet, Allura helped teach him the basic stance and footwork one needed to use a sword, and after a few practice rounds, Lance found that he wasn’t half bad with a sword, not as good as Keith, but he was, competent. Which wasn’t something he’d ever thought he could be with a sword. While training with Allura, he came to the realization that he and Allura had been getting along a lot better ever since he stopped trying to constantly bombard her with his flirting. Which, _probably starting around the time he had Keith had started getting closer before he left_ , Lance noted. And now, Allura was actually starting to remind him of his older sister Veronica, otherwise known as someone who took great joy in proving she could thoroughly kick his ass. Lance smiled at that thought as he struggled to get up after being knocked down, yet again.

\---

After Allura left to go take care of some ‘official’ business, Lance flopped back onto the training matt, spreading out, too tired to get up to shower. A few ticks went by when he noticed his ring start to vibrate from the pocket he had placed his ring into before starting training.

Pressing the gemstone, he accepted the call with a quiet, “Hey, man.”

“What’s wrong?” Keith replied with tone only Lance ever seemed to know was laced with worry.

It seemed like Lance was the only one who knew just how much Keith worried about everyone on the Castle, and for all that Keith was a private guy, Lance noticed that Keith had a tenacity to wear his emotions on his sleeve.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m just wiped from training. My Bayard changed into some old Altean Broadsword so, ya know?” Lance tried to explain.

“…Hold on one second,” Keith said, right before his face seemed to pop up out a display Lance’s ring suddenly projected, almost like the Facetime feature on the phones back on Earth.

“What the quiznak?!” Lance shouted in surprise, not having expected Keith’s face to pop up out of nowhere.

Lance calmed down though when he really looked at Keith, who looked so soft, with pride shining from his beautiful eyes, looking straight at Lance.

“Hey, sorry, I heard from someone that these things could videochat,” Keith explained, “but that’s awesome Lance, I knew you had it in you.”

And the thing is, Lance _believed_ him. When Allura said it, Lance kinda just dismissed it, but it was a whole ‘nother thing when Keith said it.

“…Thanks man,” Lance said softly looking straight at Keith, “it means a lot coming from you.”

They smiled softly at each other, both too caught up in the fact they haven’t seen each other in almost a week, when Lance continued.

“I mean, I’m not as good as you. Allura was just teaching me the ropes of using a sword because it’s so different from long-distance fighting with my guns you know? And she wiped the floor with me,” Lance said, trying and failing to shrug from his position still laying on the training matt.

“Oh,” Keith said, his face making a twitching violently before his expression shuttered, “you must have liked training with her then.”

Now Lance had _no_ idea what he’d said to make Keith’s face look like that, but he didn’t like it one bit.

“I mean, I guess? I’ve been training on my own a lot, you know? So it was nice to train with someone for a change,” he tried to explain.

Keith’s brow furrowed, before brightening a bit, “Oh, that’s cool. Yeah, that’s, um, cool.”

Lance brought the ring projection closer, studying Keith’s face, while Keith quickly looked off to the side, uncomfortable.

_No way_. _Is he-Is he jealous?! Does he-? Impossible._

Without thinking it through Lance blurted out, part wondering, part screech, “Are you-Are you _jealous?!”_

Flustered, and face pinking rapidly, refusing to look Lance in the eye Keith said, “Wh _at?_ NO!”

Seeing how embarrassed Keith was getting, Lance decided to lay up and say, “I get it man, you just want to be the one to teach me your cool ninja Jedi ways. It’s cool, samurai.”

Immediately, Keith seemed to calm down a bit at that, while Lance inwardly crowed.

_Dios Mios, I’m so quizaking bi._ He thought as they said their goodbyes an hour later, getting interrupted with Kolivan requesting Keith, and Lance’s stomach demanding to be fed.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set after that all the astral plane jazz~~~~ also I do NOT trust Kuron fam  
> but ENJOY some semi-serious then light hearted stuff (and Keith is 100% into cryptids, you can pry that headcanon out of my cold dead hands)  
> (as always all mistakes are my own because im the absolute worst at proofreading my own stuff)  
> ENJOY

Lance had just finished recording his, very, emotional, message to send to his family back on Earth. Which, he still didn’t understand _why_ they couldn’t just VISIT Earth. It’s been over a year and half in Space and he knew his family had no idea what had happened to him! _After all this time,_ Lance thought, _we deserve to have at least a short break to see our families. Even soldiers on Earth get shore leave occasionally!_ But he pushed that thought aside for a moment, and even though he felt wrung out, he knew he had to talk to _someone_ about what had happened earlier during the battle.

Something just didn’t sit right with him about what happened when they were on the astral plane. Shiro had told him to what? _Listen_. But listen to what? And why couldn’t Shiro remember any of this later on? _What is going on?_

So, taking a deep breath, Lance called Keith. Kolivan had been sending Keith on short missions, so it had been over two weeks since they last talked. Although they still texted each other pretty much every day to let the other know they were okay and stuff.

“Lance,” Keith said when he picked up, sounding out of breath.

“Is this-is this a bad time?” Lance wondered.

“No, it’s fine. What’s up?”

“Right, well. Um. Right,” Lance stammered, not knowing how to talk about this. He knew Keith saw Shiro like his older brother, and he had no idea how he was going to react, but he had to talk to _someone_ , and Keith knew Shiro better than anyone, right?

“Lance, just shit it out,” Keith said, without bite.

“Right, yeah. See, um-“

“Lance.”

“Has Shiro acted weird to you since we found him, since well, after,” Lance finally blurted.

“…What.” Keith said, after a moment, without inflection.

“You know, has he been, I don’t know, weird? You know him better than any of us, man,” Lance continued, sticking with it.

“…What do you mean weird?”

“I _don’t_ know! Off, weird? Not himself?” Lance said, gesturing wildly, even though this wasn’t a video call and Keith couldn’t see him.

“What.”

Lance huffed, getting frustrated with the circular conversation, and deciding to just give up, “Look, nevermind. It’s probably nothing, just my imagination or something, man. I don’t know.”

“…Alright?”

“Yeah, so _anyway_ -“ Lance said changing the topic, instantly feeling Keith relax as Lance talked about how Commander Holt had decided to go back to Earth to tell everyone about the War and the Galra and whatnot. Which Lance thought was pretty stupid, especially since he was going by himself, with absolutely no _proof!_

Keith, of course, thought it was a solid plan, but,

“Mira, Keith! He’s going by _himself_ to tell the Garrison about _an intergalactic war filled with ALIENS and GIANT ROBOT LIONS_. It sounds like bad sci-fi!”

“So, our lives are just bad sci-fi?”

“Well, YES! Keith, if someone had told you a few years ago that you were one day going to fight in a war against Purple Fascist Furries, would you have _believed_ them?!”

“…”

Letting out a deep sign, Lance said, “Of course you would believe them. You believe in Mothman. What was I thinking?”

After a beat, Keith shouted, “MOTHMAN IS REAL, LANCE! AND HE HAS FEELINGS!”

Cackling, Lance kept up baiting Keith, telling him cryptids weren’t real, and each time Keith shot him down.

“But what about the Lock Ness Monster, Keith?”

“Nessie is a beautiful creature who got trapped in a lake, and she has delicate feelings. You shouldn’t call a majestic girl such as her a Monster.”

“Ohmygod, Ke-Keith, what the fuck,” Lance said, struggling to take a breath in between laughing, “It’s a small lake! How has no one seen her before?”

“There’s a small tunnel at the bottom, Lance. Nessie is shy, everyone knows that!”

The two talked for a while before calling in a night, and Lance went to sleep with a smile on his face, forgetting why he was so worried earlier anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next one I do will probably be from Keith's POV so stay tuned!  
> Don't forget to leave kudos and comments since they Sustain me! <3<3

**Author's Note:**

> the next 2 chapters will deal with events that happen during episode 3, I'll have them up by the end of today...probably  
> anyway, please leave kudos or comments if you enjoyed! you guys feed my soul! <3<3  
> also let me know if you guys would want some Keith POV!!!


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